The Polar Bear Is Us

The Polar Bear Is Us

The leaked news from this week's gathering in Japan of top climate scientists on the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is even worse than all the other climate change news that's come before that somehow - oh foolish arrogant species - has yet to effect the kind of significant change it warrants: The dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human, likely prompting hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, and we are not prepared for any of it. The report uses one word over 5,000 times: risk.

"It's not far-off in the future and it's not exotic creatures - it's us and now." - Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, who worked on earlier reports.

Further

Academics are increasingly, ingeniously fighting back against an Orwellian "Professor Watchlist" aimed at exposing "radical" teachers. The list has inspired online trolls to name their own suspects - Albus Dumbledore, Dr. Pepper, Mr. Spock - and a Watchlist Redux to honor not trash targets from Jesus to teachers daring to "think critically about power." Now 100 Notre Dame professors have asked to join the list in solidarity, proclaiming, "We wish to be counted among those you are watching."